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I feel it is our duties as the sports voices of Central Florida to have these conversations every few months about how to handle yourself and your fandom. And I can say that just scrolling through my timelines on social media, I am seeing way too much about secondary fandom having a second favorite team. If you have a second favorite team, and maybe you've got a really good reason for it.
For instance, if a baseball team came to Orlando, that would become my favorite baseball team, but I would still be an Orioles fan. I've been a fan my whole life. I grew up in Baltimore. You just keep that stuff to yourself. It is unbecoming of a man to have two favorite teams. It is more socially acceptable to have two wives than to have two teams. I would be more understanding of. You know, you're bouncing back and forth between both spouses. You got kind of a Mormon thing
going on. Then you're out here wearing a Braves hat one day and a Marlin's hat the next, and not just because you think it's stylish, but because those are your teams.
It doesn't work like that.
You have to be monogamous with your with your sports teams and your brackets. But we'll save that conversation for March. But I wanted to expand this conversation beyond the obvious unwritten rule of multi team fandom, because all of us sports fans have teams that we just have an affinity for, and it might not be your favorite team. It's not necessarily an organization or even a logo that you cheer for, but a squad that you love watching, that you found yourself pulling for in a moment in time.
And that is.
The text question and the talkback question that I'm going to throw your way right now. So this can't be your favorite team. That would not qualify in any sport, it has to be a team that you have found yourself pulling for during a period of time. For me, the first team that comes to mind when I discussed this is the New Orleans Saints with Drew Brees as their quarterback. I loved watching those teams play. I love how methodical and blosive those offenses where they were fantasy gold,
and Drew Brees was just a really likable player. So that's the first one that comes to mind for me. Just to give you an idea of what it is I'm talking about. I'm a Dolphins fan. I was not a Saints fan, but I was a fan of that team. They were on National TV a lot because they were exciting and they played a brand of football that I really enjoyed. I was enjoyed watching Saints games, and I found myself pulling for them more often than not.
I'm trying to think of one without local ties, because growing up in Florida, it was I strongly disliked most Florida teams as a Boston sports fan, but kind of the some of the teams that I didn't feel that towards that it was always I really did hope that they won, but if they didn't, then okay, it wasn't really going to affect my life. And it was the two in the NFL being the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and
the Jacksonville Jaguar and the Orlando Magic in the NBA. Now, there was a period in my life where the Magic and the Celtics when the Magic were competitive, and it was like, okay, you know where things stand when those two face off. But I was, you know, I went to maybe two Magic games in my life where the Celtics weren't in town and it was just a weekend in Orlando and you go to a Magic game. So
those teams kind of fall into the bucket. I'm really torn on North Carolina basketball in the twenty tens because that was my introduction to college basketball to the extreme of what I am now. It was those teams in the mid twenty tens, Bryce Johnson, Marcus Page before they won the national championship in twenty sixteen or seventeen, those were the teams that drug me into college basketball. And I would say that I was a North Carolina fan
from that point on. When Chris Jenkins at the shot for Villanova, I fell to the floor because my team in that scenario had lost.
That has mellowed out a ton.
Now I will root for Carolina over Duke in every scenario, but outside of that, North Carolina basketball doesn't necessarily affect my life. So that's certainly one that could be up for consideration. But I did become a fan of college basketball, and I did not have any other college basketball team at that time, I had no connection to anything so.
Well for me, and I don't think that counts because I'm thinking about I think every sports fan has some version of that story. I was a kid in the mid nineties that fell in love with the two most obvious teams in the NFL and in the NBA.
I was a.
Bulls Jordan Pippen fan, and I was a Dallas and I was a Dallas Cowboys fan.
And I was a fan.
I mean I had the jerseys, I had the action figures, had the you know, the hats and all of that. I was a full fledged fan. But I was ten, so I was a front runner. It was the kid that you see at the Kia Center when Steph is in town rocking the Warriors jersey, even though he lives in Winter Park.
You know I was that.
I was that kid until I realized that that you just can't operate that way. And both of those teams got a whole lot less interesting very fast after their star players left. One of the ones for me that really qualifies with what we're talking about here is the Warriors before they won a title. I loved watching the Golden State Warriors. It was like it was like being a fan of the the grunge band before they get big and have major hits.
Twenty twelve twenty.
Thirteen, they animated into the playoffs back to back seasons. They were the most fun team to watch in the NBA. And that was before you took them seriously. Oh went back and look at some stats just to remind myself who else was on those teams. That was early Steph Curry before you thought of him. He was just an exciting offensive player. You didn't think of him as one of the best players in the NBA. They didn't win until twenty fourteen. David Lee was their second leading scorer
on those teams. But those early Warriors teams, they were so much fun.
I was. I was very attracted to that brand of basketball.
Yeah, that's probably the best example that I should have gone to immediately. One of my first NBA jerseys, the first NBA jersey that was not a Celtics jersey.
It was a Steph Curry jersey.
Festus is ze Lee another name to throw out on the mix, Monte Ellis in the mix in early Steph Curry's career. But yeah, that was the prime example of the team that I was not a fan, but I enjoyed watching them until they started to win and then it was like, okay, there is zero fandom tied to this in the slightest but definitely the early stages of Steph Curry in Golden State, it was the most entertaining
thing to watch that wasn't one of my teams. And at that time, you think about the twenty eleven Twelve Days and the big trade that sent all the Boston Stars to Brooklyn in twenty thirteen and Allen heading down to Miami, like there was kind of a lull in Boston basketball where I was still a Celtics fan, but I loved watching some Golden.
State Warriors before they got too big. So that is a great example.
The Chicago Cubs in twenty sixteen, I was all in on that.
I wanted to see that team win the World Series, and they did.
Chris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, those guys, that's definitely on a list. It's hard to not become an honorary Cubs fan when it's convenient. If you've been to Wrigular Field, that place will suck you in.
It's so cool.
And I've been fortunate enough to have been there twice, and I believe that was prior to twenty sixteen. So I was kind of like in love with the the aura of the Cubs and excited to go back by the way end of July, going back to regular field. And then the last one that I wrote down that popped into my mind was the Suns in the Bubble. Remember how much fun that bummer was unconscious for a month? The best bubble team they were eight and h and
Devin Booker was named Bubble MVP. It was a weird time, but it was I enjoyed the Bubble.
I needed that in my life at the time.
You could argue in some twisted way that it was the most enjoyable basketball ever in our lifetime. Outside Okay, and I'll say I miss Jordan, So maybe Jordan just out of his peak. Could probably, But you think about how starving we all were. I was watching NBA players play two k at that time, just to get some sports action. And speaking of MJA, the last dance got us through that. But the actual basketball that was played in the bubble like it could be the most desirable
basketball since two thousand. It could be. I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying with how hungry we all were for sports.
Somebody said that the Lions after watching them on Hard Knocks, this friend of the show, Adrian, Yeah, completely agree. I'm still cheering for the Lions. Yeah, that is a team that you feel good about, what real untill they win and then we're going to be off of them immediately, right real quick before we go.
Just to get back to the overall what we see more often than not with the two teams and the justification of why you can be a fan of two different teams. What do you think the rules are of where are you allowed to be a fan of two teams? And what are some cases where I don't care you like you? There's no reason that you can be you.
Can't you you can in your in the privacy of your own home. You can do whatever you want, but don't public You can't publicize it. You cannot claim two teams. It doesn't work like that an areo. You gotta pick one the second if you have a favorite team and then another team becomes your favorite team, because it never happens at once. You don't choose two teams at the
same time. So there's a team that comes first that's your favorite team, and then for some reason, maybe you moved, maybe you became infatuated with a player, whatever it is, you now have another one. You've now dropped the last one. If you add a new favorite team, your old favorite team is no longer your favorite team. So don't go
walking around. I'm a Rams fan, I'm a Bucks fan, which is by the way, one of the texters says you're one or the other, and at home you can golf clap for both teams, but when you communicate with other sports fans, you gotta pick one. You can't have two teams. It's the unwritten rule. I don't see any scenario where that doesn't play.
I think that there can be some examples, but for the most part that I agree with you, AND's in college athletics, where I think you can get away with it the most because in the guess what, in professional sports, everyone plays everyone, so it's not well, I like they're my Eastern Conference team, then then I I'm a fan of this team in the West, No, no, no, no, you get a team, okay. In the NBA, everyone plays everyone.
Where I think you can get away with it in college athletics is first of all, I don't care who you cheered for growing up. Your undergrad is your team, all right, And I think that that is number one. If you grew up cheering for Florida FSU and you went to UCF, UCF is your team. Vice versa. If you grew up cheering for UCF, God love you. If you went to Florida, Florida is your team. And that's how i'd That's how I would hope it would be.
The cases where you can get away with it is if you go to undergrad at one place and grad school at another, if they are in different time zones, in different leagues, then you can be then you can claim both. I know a girl FSU for undergrad you DUB for grad school University of Washington.
There was a scenario where those teams.
Those two teams would have played in the college ball playoff a couple of years ago.
That's where things get messy.
But if that's what it takes, is getting down to the final four for your teams to square off with one another, then I still give you a pass. You know, okay, like you have you can have two teams in that moment, like and you.
Still have a favorite.
There's there's always gonna be one that means more to you than the and that's your team. It's like your kids, but your kids. But see, that's where sports teams aren't gonna be offended. You can't look at your kids and go, honestly, the first one is just better.
So that's the way you can't do that. You can do that with sports teams, and that is where you should. I I agree.
What you just brought up is as close an example as you can get to. But cheering for a team or hoping that a team does well, or having an affinity for a team and them being your favorite team are two different things. There's the favorite. The word favorite means the best one. It's like, uh Stefan has brought this up in the past. You can't use goat. For everybody there's a goat. It's greatest of all time. They're are like to pluralize goats, which people do all the time,
makes no sense. And having multiple favorite teams makes no sense. You either have a favorite team or you don't.
Your undergrad school is your school. I want everyone to keep that in mind.
I agree with that.
I'm sick of these I'm in Gainesville front of the I'm still in the younger demographic right, So if you're in a student section at twenty four and you're great and you've already graduated, whatever, so not a big deal. But I'm sick of people in Gainesville front center, rowdy, biggest fan ever one Saturday and then the following Saturday, you're back in Orlando. Whoo my lum go team. No no, no, no, no, pick one one or the other. And if you went to one front grad one for grad school, you still.
Just gotta choose. Gotta choose. The home buying process is a bear.